Reflexology and Metamorphic Massage
I was introduced to reflexology by a friend over 20 years ago. I complained to her about a bad neck ache and not being able to rotate my head without the pain taking my breath away. This had been going on for about two months. She said why don’t you go and see my reflexologist? What on earth is a reflexologist was my reply…
A few days later I was to discover that a reflexologist is someone who can understand incredible things about your body and your health by only touching your feet. I was blown away.
Reflexology, sometimes also called zone therapy, is a form of pressure-point massage that focusses on our feet and sometimes also our hands. About 3000 years ago Chinese medicine discovered that there are many energy streams, like pathways that run through our body and connect all the parts they touch. They’re called Meridians. The energy that runs through them is our basic life force, also called Chi. When these streams get blocked off, the result is pain and illness, but the moment the blockage is removed and the energy can flow freely again, the ailment disappears. Now these streams terminate in our hands and feet, and so by working on these exact points, it is possible to stimulate the other parts of the body that are connected to them.
So I went to see this lady, she had me lie down under a nice warm blanket with just my bare feet sticking out. I had no experience of this whatsoever, so she explained to me how it worked and talked me through all of it. Whenever she was massaging some part of my feet that was connected to healthy parts of my body, it just felt wonderfully relaxing. But when she touched a point related to my pain point, my neck at the time, it felt like she was suddenly sinking her nails or a knife into my foot. I couldn’t believe it, I had to sit up and watch her hands. The same gentle massage that felt great a few millimetres away from that point, turned into torture.
The first thing I learned about reflexology was that it is amazing for finding out if and where something is wrong
The therapist knows exactly which point on the foot corresponds to what part or organ, and our reactions will tell them exactly where there’s something to look at. (During this first session she asked me if I knew that I had a caries in one of the lower left teeth. I knew, it had started hurting a little bit a couple of days earlier. How could she know that??? It didn’t even hurt when she touched the related spot on my foot… she just felt it there).
That fist day she worked a lot on the painful points of my feet and the pain slowly became less sharp as she kept working on it. She told me to just go home after the massage and take it easy because a few hours later I might feel like I have a flu. Her image to explain that was a bottle with some dirt in it, then you pour water into it and shake it well to flush it out. The bottle would be my body, the dirt would be all the accumulated toxins and the massage would be the stirring-up and flushing-out. And so it happened!
I then needed another four sessions to get rid of my neck ache completely and for good! After that, I started going once every three weeks or so, I was so taken with the diagnostic and prevention potential of this. I never had the clean-out symptoms again after that first time, but I knew I was doing something fantastic for my health, it always felt amazing, sometimes there would be the odd pain signal here and there and then things were brought back under control very quickly.
I hope this isn’t sounding too esoteric to you so far, because I’m about to take you a step further.
I met a lady some time ago who told me she does Metamorphic Massage. What on earth is Metamorphic Massage I asked her.
Also called Metamorphic Technique, it was developed by Robert St. John, a British naturopath and reflexologist during the 1960s. It is a very gentle massage of the spine reflexology points located in our feet, hands and head. As in traditional reflexology, it works on the meridians, but focusses on the spine, where most memories of our experiences are stored as energy patterns, sometimes energy knots. These memories start accumulating at the time of conception, then through the whole time in the womb, through birth and childhood and through our whole life. The experiences that are traumatic, create energy patterns that will result in fears, limiting beliefs, mental or physical illnesses. As in traditional reflexology, when the knots get untangled the energy can flow freely again, and the feelings of being stuck in life and scared, sometimes suddenly, sometimes gradually, disappear.
So to sum it up in two lines, we can say that Reflexology concentrates more on the physical side of our health and the Metamorphic Technique concentrates more on the emotional side of it, but these two levels are so deeply connected that of course, both techniques will affect both levels.
My first Metamorphic session was really beautiful. It started with an incredibly relaxing massage followed by the actual technique, first on my feet, then on my hands and then on my head. It lasted an hour and a half, and I came out of it full of energy and glowing. The therapist doesn’t need to know anything about you, because they don’t work on any specific issue. They just rebalance your energy flow and it’s actually more up to you than to them to feel if something is getting unblocked, released, softened. They will feel things too and may tell you what it is they feel.
Mine did, first thing she asked was if I’m in a period of inner change. Oh yes I am, very much so! Next thing she sensed was a big sadness, and that again was spot-on, I have been incredibly sad for a few months after my cat died, that was a really big loss for me. Later she asked if I have a strong connection to one of my grandmothers, and yes! I do, and it has become even stronger over the past 5 or 6 years, even though she died when I was 7…
The massage – if you can call it that – is really gentle, it’s more of a light touch, and sometimes it’s not even a touch, the therapist can move their hands away from you but you still feel they are touching your energy, you can feel theirs radiating very strongly. For parts of it I was in a beautiful state close to sleep but still awake. The technique isn’t only effective during the actual session, it keeps working on you for the 2 following days, and I must say that I could feel this very clearly. It was as if I could actually feel the blood running through my veins and I felt very energised.
As you know if you’re familiar with my posts, I strongly believe that we are energetic beings and that
some of our energy manifests itself as matter, and that’s our body, but most of it is invisible to the bare eye
Some people perceive way more energy than most of us, like the ones who see our aura… God! I wish I could see that, I always dreamt of being able to see other people’s “true colours”. Some can feel it more than see it, but still, they are so much more aware of how “big” every human being is.
I strongly believe that energy healing is the best, most natural kind of healing. It comes in different forms, but I know from personal experience that healing done on our subtle body is as effective – if not more sometimes – as healing done on our physical body.
